Six Awesome Days In Barbados

In the summer of 2026, my wife, teenage son, and I took an awesome vacation to Barbados in the Caribbean. Barbados may be small in size, but packs in so much to see and do. It’s got fantastic scenery unlike anywhere else in the Caribbean, amazing white sand beaches with perfect waters, a unique and vibrant local culture, lots of adventure, and delicious food. It’s a perfect Caribbean vacation destination for people of all ages if you want some variety, and aren’t interested in staying inside an all inclusive massive beach resort the whole time.

We thoroughly enjoyed our vacation. I planned everything for the trip myself, so, I want to share our experiences, to help you plan a vacation to Barbados.

📋Day By Day Experiences

Stop on the Lickrish food and culture tour

Stop on the Lickrish food and culture tour

Delicious breakfast and a view

Bathsheba, Saint Joseph, Barbados

A stop on the birding trip

The hotel we stayed at

✈️ Day 1 – Arrival and car pickup

We arrived in Barbados at about 4PM on a JetBlue flight from JFK. I got a rental car from Stoutes Car Rental that I had previously reserved. Pickup was easy, their office is right at the airport, so we were in and out. The challenge of the day was driving on the left side of the road, and sitting on the right side of the car! It took some getting used to, but, I found it relatively easy. The multilane roundabouts were a bit stressful for the first few days, but, I didn’t have much trouble with them. Driving is definitely the best way to get around Barbados, don’t be too scared of driving.

After dinner, we headed to our hotel (Bougainvillea Barbados – I’ll describe that more later), and settled in, getting ready for an adventure packed day tomorrow.

🍽️Day 2 – Food, culture, and scenery

Today we did several fun things to really experience Barbados.

👟Bridgetown Walking Food Tour

The first adventure for today was the Lickrish Bajan Walking Food Tour. This was such a great way to experience Barbados – I can’t say enough great things about this – this was a top experience of the trip. After driving to Bridgetown and parking (I parked at the helipad parking lot – easy to get to, and a 10 minute walk to the starting point), we met up with the tour group at Independence Square at 10:30AM (yes, 10:30 – don’t eat breakfast!). There were 8 of us in the group, plus the guide.

The tour was around 3 hours, with 6 stops for food. All along the way we got to see and experience local Bajan culture and history. There is so much food here – everyone was completely stuffed, and we had more than enough food to take back for dinner, and for some snacking in later days. Here is everything we did:

• Seeing the National Heroes Square monuments – the monument showing the unshackling of chains from slavery was pretty cool. Our guide explained the history here really well. There is so much in a small area in downtown Bridgetown to see.
• First food stop was Crumbz Bakery, where we each got a bag full of various local treats – rum cake, a meat roll, currants roll (my favorite), and a few others. Since they gave it to us in bags, we didn’t even eat half of it and saved the rest for later.
• Tim’s Restaurant – everyone got a plate full of delicious local food (pictured below), the breadfruit and macaroni pie were awesome.
• Swan Street open air market – we walked down through this market for a bit, and our group was pretty much the only tourists. It was cool getting to see locals shopping and all of the stuff that everyone had for sale.
• Juice vendor on Swan Street – there were so many different kinds of bottles of juice, we each got one from the food tour. I had my first sorrel and ginger, and it was so good!
• Fritters – I can’t remember the name of the restaurant, but this might have been the best out of all of them. A tiny hole in the wall place that had all different kinds of fritters, we could each pick 2 for the food tour.
• Another place with a full meal – I can’t remember the name but the second to last stop, we got take out containers with a full meal of flying fish, rice, and a few others. There was no way we could eat this at the time, we were stuffed, so this was our dinner later in the day
• Agapey Chocolate Factory for ice cream for the last stop – very good, chocolate ice cream of course but other flavors too.

📸Driving for amazing scenery

Next up – I picked out two places to drive to on the north end of the island for amazing scenery. Because Barbados doesn’t have big mountains and steep cliffs, you might not think of coming here for scenery, but I absolutely love the views of the east Atlantic coast, and along the northern tip.

After this amazing view, we drove to the northern tip of the island at Animal Flower Cave. Most information about here is about the “flower cave”, where you can pay to go down to a cave and see sea anemones and walk around, and the restaurant, but we didn’t do either of these. You can park here and walk around the edge of the cliffs, all for free. The ocean was pretty rough when we were here, providing pretty awesome views and sights of waves crashing along the cliffs. There are several places where there are openings below you where ocean water rushes in. It’s very easy to walk around this – totally open, no precarious cliffs – it’s all pretty flat (albeit rocky) on the top. This is a MUST do in Barbados. It is a bit of a drive, about an hour from our hotel in the south of the island, but well worth the time.

After this day of experiencing Bajan culture, having delicous food, and seeing absolutely beautiful sights, it was time to head back to the hotel to relax for the evening (and have our leftover food for dinner).

🌸Day 3 – Botanical Gardens and the Atlantic Coast

Today I’ve got another day of driving to see some more sights – this time the Atlantic coast and tropical plants at botanical gardens.

🍳Morning Breakfast and Views

After the Farm House we drove a few minutes to Hackleton’s Cliff for some great views of the Atlantic coast (and some surprising bugs). Both place were relatively easy to drive to, although the roads up here have a lot of holes, so take it slow.

🌿Beautiful plants at botanical gardens

Barbados has no shortage of botanical gardens – 3 major ones for a small island. We visited two of them today. First up is Flower Forest Botanical Gardens – a short drive from The Farm House. Flower Forest is higher up in elevation on the eastern side of the island, and in addition to the plants, has some great views. You start off and end in a building in the middle of the forest that has a gift shop and restaurant. Just come here and pay, and then you can walk through the gardens. There are a few paths, but one main one that traverses the gardens. Flower Forest is sort of like a mix of a tropical forest, and manicured gardens. The flowers here are beautiful. Between the two gardens we visited today, I liked Flower Forest better – it really blends nature and man made/manicured gardens. (as a side note be sure you put bug spray on! I didn’t for the first few minutes and had a few bites). It took us around an hour maybe to traverse the path, but we really took our time. It was so peaceful being in nature we lost all sense of time. In mid July on a Sunday, there was virtually no one else here.

After finishing the path, we came back to the restaurant and had some drinks before heading out to the next gardens – Andromeda Botanic Gardens. Andromeda was a relatively short drive down the hillside, close to the coast. It’s a bit more compact than Flower Forest, and a little less nature-y and more manicured, but is still a great place to visit. There is such a wide variety of plant life here, and lots of butterflies. We also spent about an hour traversing the path, enjoying the flowers and gardens around us.

⚱️Pottery class and ocean side trail

After this, the 3 of us split up for a few hours. My wife did a pottery class right at Andromeda Gardens from a local expert pottery instructor – Motions of Clay. This was a 2 hour class with mostly locals, and a few other tourists. She really enjoyed this, and was able to bring her creation home – it air dries, no firing or kiln is used. Having the class right here at the gardens was really nice and made it easy to combine two activities.

My son and I had no interest in a pottery class, so we headed down the coast to hike along part of the Bathsheba Coastal Walk. I drove to the Hillcrest Community Center where there is plenty of parking, and a pathway down to the trail. There is also a restaurant, bar, and food and drink stand. We walked east on the trail by the Atlantis Historic Inn, and a little bit further for some great views. But the trail was a little too overgrown for my liking after this, so we turned around and went the other direction from the community center, to Bathsheba Park in the town of Bathsheba. There are some huge rocks off the coast here providing some great views. Being there mid July, the Atlantic coast has a lot of sargassum, which made for some pretty cool and colorful pictures, but would have ruined a beach day if you wanted to hang out here for too long.

Still though, this was a fun little hike with some really unique views. After this we walked back to the community center, and had some macaroni pie at the food and drink stand there (not the restaurant). This was the best macaroni pie I had on the whole island – it was right out of the oven, cheap, and a great mini-meal along with a beer.

After going back to Andromeda Gardens to get my wife after the pottery class, it was about time to call it a day. Instead of driving the quickest way, I drove through the southeast part of the island to see the last section of the island we hadn’t seen, before going back to our hotel.

🦜Day 4 – Birding, beach hotel, and fish fry

After two days filled with activities, we took it a little easier today. But we did pack one adventure in today.

🐦‍⬛Bird watching tour

I’ve been in to birding for a few years now and love finding new birds for my eBird checklist, and taking pictures of birds (see my birding Instagram page, lakebraddockbirder for them). Barbados in July isn’t a great time for birds, but any time I’m somewhere new I try to find as many birds as I can. So this morning, my son and I booked a Barbados bird watching experience tour through ebikebarbados (I booked it on Viator but you can book directly). This was such a fun experience and I’d highly recommend it to anyone in to birding. Our awesome guide and expert birder, Roger, picked us up from our hotel at 8:15, and drove us around to 4 different birding spots in the middle and southeast of the island. Roger spotted and pointed out a lot of different types of birds for us, and also talked a lot about the island and culture on the drive. One of the coolest things was stopping at St. John’s Parish church to look around, and to feed the doves there – they land right on your arm and hand to eat the food he brought. One of the stops was also at a private impoundment where injured birds are rehabilitated, inside of enclosures, plus there are open lagoons with a lot of wild birds. This was a really different experience, and with just my son and I on the tour, it was a very personalized experience. For those interested in birding lifelists – I added 16 birds in Barbados, several of them on this tour.

The tour was a little over 3 hours in total. Again I very highly recommend this.

While we were out, my wife got a spa treatment at the hotel. After coming back, we spent the afternoon eating lunch at the hotel, relaxing in the pool and at the pool bar, and on our balcony overlooking the beach.

♨️Dinner at Oistin’s Fish Fry

For dinner – we went the famous Oistin’s Fish Fry. This is an absolute MUST do in Barbados. It’s most famous for Friday nights, which are really crowded but quite a scene from what I heard. It’s open every day though – go another day if you don’t want crowds. We went on a Monday evening and it wasn’t crowded.. Despite it being a Monday, there was some music and karaoke going on in the middle.

Getting here is easy – it was a 5 minute drive from the hotel, and there is a huge parking lot across the street from it. There are a lot of different stands offering fresh grilled fish, and other foods, with lots of tables to sit at. The vendors will really try to get you to come to their stand as you walk by, so be prepared for that! Definitely do a walk through of the whole place before picking one place to eat at. We ate at Chillin and Grillin and had a delicious meal, each of us getting a different kind of fish. The whole red snapper, while expensive, was fantastic, maybe the best food we had on the whole island. The barracuda was awesome too.

⛵Day 5 – Catamaran and luxury dinner

⛵5 hour luxury catamaram

Every Caribbean vacation needs a catamaran cruise. Today we did the luxury sail, snorkel, and lunch experience from Calabaza Sailing Cruises (I booked on Viator, but you can book directly). It started in the morning – we were picked up from our hotel at 8AM, and taken to the dock where we boarded quickly. After setting sail, they had some light breakfast food for us. The boat was really nice, and the luxury cruise never books more than 14 guests so there’s plenty of room on the boat (there were 13 there on our sailing, plus the captain, and two deckhands).

The entire cruise was very relaxing and a perfect way to spend a morning/early afternoon. We went up the west coast of Barbados to a really good snorkeling place north of Speightstown, where there were a few turtles and fish. One of the staff was really helpful during snorkeling, guiding us to the good spots and helping us move around when we needed help. And he took us close to the beach where there was an artificial reef. We spent a pretty long time in the water here, it was a memorable experience. After getting back on board we had a delicious lunch of kingfish and other Bajan food. After this it was back down the coast to Bridgetown. At some point we made another stop for swimming as well – I can’t remember exactly where, it may have been the free rum punches making my memory hazy. Then after docking, the van took us back to our hotel.

I really liked this cruise – the small size, and length of time snorkeling, and the amount of help we got snorkeling, really set this apart from other catamaran cruises I’ve been on. My teenage son was pretty bored after lunch – 5 hours is a long time, but my wife and I enjoyed it, and found it very relaxing. Being served rum punches the whole cruise was nice too. Now compared to other cruises in other Caribbean islands, the scenery is a a little dull, the west coast of Barbados doesn’t have much scenery to offer on land, although the beaches are beautiful.

👩🏻‍🍳Luxury Buffet Dinner at Sandy Lane

We relaxed at the hotel for a bit, and then headed to Sandy Lane for the Bajan Blue Taste of the West Indies buffet. This was a truly luxury experience, unlike anything else I’ve had in the Caribbean. Sandy Lane is regarded as one of the top luxury resorts in the Caribbean, and it definitely felt that way. This buffet is offered every Tuesday evening from 7 to 10PM (as of 2026), and does require reservations. There were a ton of tables here so I imagine even in peak season you won’t have trouble getting a reservation. Now, it is really expensive – as of 2026 it’s $180 USD per person! But for the variety of very high quality food, I don’t think it’s too crazy of a price, especially if you compare it to high end restaurant menus in the US.

There is so much food here – you can’t possibly even try every kind of food. Meats are the real highlight here – there was a suckling pig, and a grill where you can get fresh grilled red snapper, lamb chops, steak, chicken, and a lot of other options. The lamb in particular was perfect. There are lots of local Bajan dishes, rotis, and some Trinidadian food. A cheese spread and charcuterie. And a lot more, I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot. Desserts are delicious. A hint – only take really little portions, so you can try a lot. Drinks aren’t included, but the wine selection was fantastic – both by the bottle and by the glass.

I’ve read mixed reviews of this buffet, but, we all loved it, and I would definitely do it again. Everything we had here was delicious There is a dress code – pants and a nice shirt for men. So my son and I had to pack pants just for this restaurant. The environment was great, and there was even a singer and guitar player going around to each table performing songs which was really cool. Some reviews say that they weren’t treated well as non-hotel guests, but we didn’t feel this at all, service was good. It just meant we didn’t get a table along the beach, but further back closer to the food.

🛶Day 6 – Nature Sanctuary and on to Grenada

Sadly, today is our last day in Barbados. Instead of heading home, we are flying to Grenada for a 4 day trip there – look for a future post about that. But, our flight to Grenada isn’t scheduled to leave until the evening, so we’ve got most of today for Barbados. I had originally booked the Atlantis Submarine for this morning, but a few days before this they emailed me to say the submarine was undergoing maintenance and not running. I was pretty disappointed because this looked really cool. If I come back to Barbados I’ll definitely do this.

🪿Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary

After packing our bags, and relaxing at the hotel for the morning, we checked out at 11, and headed to another place on my list – Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary. It’s a large sanctuary with some different enclosures and boardwalks to see a lot of different birds, around a lake and some mangrove forests. There is a main walkway to walk around, that stops at the enclosures. But I had also booked a boat ride around the lake in advance, which was pretty cool. The lake isn’t big, but in the middle there is a tree with tons of egrets. The captain explained a lot, pointing out different birds, animals, and plants. After this we went through the tropical bird enclosures. This was really cool because the birds are all around you, you can walk through it, and it’s pretty big. It’s a pretty unique experience.

Graeme Hall is pretty pricey for foreigners, so, if you’re not really in to birds or nature, it might not be worth it. But it’s still cool to see. And it’s at a very easy to get to location, right in the middle of the Worthing area in the south of the island, which was barely 5 minutes from our hotel.

🍽️Seaside lunch at Champers

After Graeme Hall, we got lunch at a pretty well known nearby restaurant, Champers. They have a delicious 3 course lunch, that is a bit pricey. The good food and location make it worth it though – our table was right on the edge of a cliff with water crashing underneath of us. Make reservations in advance to ensure you get one of these tables. We had a lot of time to burn before our flight, so this was a great way to spend some time, just watching the waves crash, slowly eating our food. The staff didn’t mind us staying for a long time – it was not crowded at all. It’s covered so we were in the shade, and there was a breeze coming off of the ocean, so it was pretty comfortable. Champers is easy to get to, with free parking across the street, and there’s also an art gallery upstairs.

✈️Delayed flight to Grenada

Grenada is next up on our trip. I had booked an InterCaribbean flight months ago direct from Barbados to Grenada, to leave mid afternoon. Unfortunately, a few days before the flight, InterCaribbean cancelled that flight, but rebooked us on another flight a few hours later, that stopped in St. Vincent first. No problem, we found things to do. But a little before we got to the airport, they pushed back the departure time by another hour. And then, once we were in the terminal, the incoming flight was delayed even further. We ended up departing 2 hours later than the already rescheduled time at almost 10PM. So we spent a long time sitting in the airport. Despite all of that, we did get to Grenada safely, landing right before midnight (and fortunately we had arranged a taxi pickup in advance through our hotel there, so a driver was waiting for us).

My advice – if you are taking one of these island to island flights, be prepared for delays! Looking back at the flight data for our flight, most days it was delayed by at least an hour.

🏨Hotel

We stayed the whole trip at the Bougainvillea Resort, getting the nicest room they have, the 2 bedroom beachfront suite. Since it’s July, the off season, the rate was very good and didn’t break the bank. Very few rooms are beachfront like ours was, but most have some view of the ocean. The hotel is v-shaped, with two winding pools in the middle, and lots of bougainvillea flowers. Our room was so big and spacious, with great views, everything we could possibly need, and comfy beds, so I definitely recommend Bougainvillea. The multiple views of the ocean were great – from the balcony off of the living room, and the balcony off of the master bedroom.

Bougainvillea is in a great location on the south of the island – close to Oistins, St. Lawrence, and Worthing, and not too far from Bridgetown. It’s got free parking, a restaurant right in the middle, and another one next door. The room was fantastic, room service was great, the swim up beach bar was pretty nice – I definitely recommend it.

💡Barbados Trip Tips and Impressions

Barbados is a perfect place to visit for people who might think “I don’t really want to go to the Caribbean, I don’t want to sit around on a beach at a giant resort”. It feels much more authentic than those types of destinations in the Caribbean. There is a lot to do and see that is really unique to Barbados.

• 🚗Unless you think you are a bad driver, rent a car to get around. You open up so much more to see and do with a car (I read that there is a ride share app there that is somewhat reliable, but, it’s not cheap.) I got used to the left side driving after about a day, after that, I found it pretty easy. The main roads are relatively well maintained, and some are multi-lane. Roads are relatively flat since the island isn’t mountainous, and speeds are decent but not too fast. Other drivers are generally really good – much better than in most US cities! Just about all roads are paved, even in the more rural eastern and middle parts.
  • Those eastern and middle parts of the island can have somewhat rough road conditions – lots of holes, and can be a little uneven, so just go a little slow, and swerve around them. I rented a Suzuki Fronx which was perfect for Barbados – not wide so it’s easy to get around even the city roads, and it’s higher off of the ground than regular cars, so even if you hit a hole, you probably won’t have any problems.
• You can literally drive around the entire island in two and a half hours – anything on the island is easily accessible.
• The terrain and scenery here is really unlike anywhere else I’ve been. Unlike just about everywhere else in the Caribbean, the island is NOT volcanic, it’s coral/limestone, and was pushed above the ocean from tectonic activity over millions of years. This allows a lot of grasslands and plains, and sweeping views, and allows everything on the island to be easily accessible.
• ☀️Temperature – in mid July, the temperatures were usually in the low 80’s, getting up to maybe 85 or 86 tops. It is very humid, with dewpoints in the upper 70’s most of the time. Most days were partly cloudy – clouds would come and go. I liked the weather here much better than some other Caribbean places I’ve been where it’s 91 degrees all day and the sun is blasting with no clouds.
• 🌧️Rain – we were here during the supposed rainy season, but it didn’t feel like it. Our first day there were storms and heavy rain around 5AM, and there was some light rain a few other times (mostly in the early morning), but nothing disrupted any of our plans. I wouldn’t let the “rainy season” in summer affect any planning.
• 🪰Bugs – there were mosquitos at times at a few places, so bring bug spray.
• 🍽️Restaurants – The food here is delicious – it was definitely one of the best parts of the trip. Bajans (the name for people from Barbados) take their food seriously, and really strive to offer high quality, diverse food. There are restaurants everywhere on the island – everything ranging from small stands, to ultra luxury restaurants catering to rich tourists and celebrities.
• Tipping – just about every restaurant we went to had a 10 or 12 percent service charge – these go to the staff and are like a tip. You can add more tip on top of this if the service was very good. But check for the service charge on the bill – not every restaurant adds it.
• 💧Water – Tap water is safe to drink everywhere.
• 💰Money and cost – The Barbados dollar is the currency used here, and it has a fixed conversion rate – 2 Barbados dollars to 1 US dollar. Things can be expensive in Barbados, particularly food. Don’t expect to get cheap food and souvenirs here like some other islands. Coming from a major US city, I didn’t think the prices were too bad, and were maybe a little less than major US cities, but it can be a bit of a surprise for tourists. Although, our hotel was priced very well, perhaps some of that is because it was the off season for tourists.
• Unlike some other Caribbean islands, I’d say standard of living here is pretty good. Driving around the entire island, I didn’t see third world conditions with people in deep povery like you see on some islands.
• I didn’t worry about crime anywhere – no concerns at all walking through the open air market or other areas of Bridgetown during the day.
• 💳Cash or card? Almost everywhere took Mastercard and Visa, so we paid for just about everything this way. It’s still a good idea to have some cash on hand though, so get some at the ATM at the airport when you land.
• Language – Barbados was a British colony, and English is spoken by essentially everyone on the island. Now, the local creole dialect can be a little tough to understand, but you’ll only hear this when locals are talking to each other, anyone will speak regular English when talking to tourists.